Can government ever clean itself up? With the Abramoff/Congressional payola scandals still underway, we might ask ourselves whether the U.S. Congress can ever police itself. While I would like to stay positive and say that government can clean itself up, I think that is virtually impossible. It has not happened in over 200 years and there is no reason to assume that it will happen now, despite the verbal assurances of the two ruling, dynasty parties. However, there are several things that we can do to help clean them up.

First, keep the spotlight on everything they do. Don’t let them run and don’t let them hide. The Downsize DC effort led by Jim Babka is a major step in the right direction. Specifically, the proposed ‘Read The Bills’ legislation will require that before a vote on any legislation, that bill must be read aloud on the floor of the House or Senate in its entirety. This will help keep the bills short and will not permit add-ons later. Add-ons are the favorite legislators use to tack-on pork barrel projects. For more information see DownsizeDC.org. Also, all their actions need to be completely transparent to the public. No backdoor meetings. No side deals. After all, they are supposed to be representing us so there should be no reason to hide, right?

Second, we need to support groups that have traditionally shed light on government waste, corruption, and unconstitutional laws, organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union. And the famous Golden Fleece Award, started by Democrat Senator William Proxmire, needs to become a monthly event. This award is given to lawmakers that have done the most to fleece tax payers of their hard-earned money for use in their district or state pork barrel projects to help them get reelected, to aggrandize family members, or their political contributors.

Third, libertarians need to sweep current legislators out of office except for libertarian Rep. Ron Paul. The two dynasty parties have stacked the cards heavily against any third party trying to get on the ballot particularly for national elections. For more information visit ballot-access.org or read Richard Winger’s excellent article in the May 2005 Fordham Law Review called ‘An Analysis of the 2004 Nader Ballot Access Federal Court Cases.’ Bottom line: Anyone trying to run as a third party candidate needs to start very early and know all the rules, especially court decisions. And it may be easier for libertarian candidates to run as either a Democrat or Republican, depending on the political landscape, so that they can get elected and then change the system from the inside. This is what libertarian Rep. Ron Paul has done and is trying to do as he represents his Texas district as a Republican. Local candidates, to include state legislatures, can still be successful running as Libertarian Party candidates, but it becomes geometrically more difficult at the national level.

Finally, we must exact a pledge from candidates to poverty and fidelity while in office, a fidelity that they only represent their tax paying constituent voters and not any special interests. They must swear to uphold the original intent of the U.S. Constitution and all constitutional laws enacted subsequently. What this means is that they must actually do what they swear to do and not as lawmakers do currently: enact unconstitutional laws, expand government, and tax the hell out of everybody to pay for it. Since their position is constitutionally based, they will consequently support limited government and only the core functions of government as specifically laid out in the constitution; nothing more, nothing less.

Taking these few simple steps will help the legislative and executive branches of our government do the things that “we the people” expect from our government.

Dr. Noel Gibeson Corbell. As president of the Mount Vernon Institute, Dr. Corbell provides research and consulting services into contemporary issues involving the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, international affairs, human rights, the economy, terrorism, intelligence, homeland security, including counter-terrorism, and government responsibility and accountability. At Georgetown University, he taught courses as they relate to technology, intelligence, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism and space issues. One course called Intelligence and American Foreign Policy, examined unclassified, open-source documents and the steps in the intelligence cycle up to and including preparation of the National Intelligence Estimate. As an organizational management consultant and a radio broadcaster with WALE Radio 990, he produced and hosted a live, radio talk show broadcast over New England and New York called Tomorrow, Today. Earlier, Noel Gibeson Corbell was a career U.S. Marine Corps force recon and infantry officer. In that regard he served in operational positions worldwide in jungles, deserts, mountains and oceans. Later, he was a strategic planner at Headquarters Marine Corps and for the Secretary of the Navy. His commentaries have appeared in newspapers like the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, the Army Times, the Air Force Times, and on the Free Market News Network, as well as in The National Interest.